Review of The Yes Men (2003) by V H — 01 Oct 2004

[size=2]It all started with a website. A group of young political activists known as the Yes Men, vehemently opposed to the World Trade Organization (WTO), built a web page that parodied the actual WTO web page but incorporated their own political beliefs. The problem was, they did it a little too well.

The situation had the making for big trouble, extreme hilarity, or possibly both. Fortunately, the new documentary ?The Yes Men,? which tells the true story of political pranksters Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum, is often very funny. The film is tongue-in-cheek while mocking the institution it abhors.

Perhaps to understand why Bonanno and Bichlbaum hated the WTO so much, it is necessary to explain what the WTO does; the organization has a great influence over the economic policies of the world, and most people have no idea what it stands for.

The WTO is a coalition of the richest individuals and corporations in the world. Together, they drew up free trade ?rules,? which allowed them to impose their will on any Third World nation they desired. Corporate members of the WTO are responsible for outsourcing jobs to Third World nations and exploiting the impoverished people of the world?s poorest nations. These Third World factories employ people (including women and young children) for only pennies an hour, while the money the workers are paid is hardly enough to pay for adequate food, shelter, clothing, and health care. In short, conditions under WTO free trade laws are a modernized version of slavery.

So enter Bonanno and Bichlbaum and their parody web site. The site attracts attention, and educated businessmen, economists, and accountants begin to take their fake WTO page seriously. Soon the two are invited to speak at conferences as representatives of the WTO. Intrigued, Bonanno and Bichlbaum decide to go along for the ride, and have some fun at the WTO?s expense. Donning cheap business suits and fake names like Andreas Bichlbauer and Granwyth Hulatberi, the two activists are whisked along to Salzburg, Austria, where they discuss the economic advantages of auctioning off the American vote.

They appear in Tampere, Finland, where they call the Civil War a waste of money and explain how Southern plantation owners had a good idea with African slavery, but modern sweatshop labor is more economical. Other appearances include an appearance on CNBC in London, and a conference in New York state where the two discuss the possible benefits of recycling human waste into McDonald?s hamburgers.

What is most startling, however, is the attentiveness and the acceptance of Bonanno and Bichlbaum?s message among some of the most educated in the world. They speak with an air of authority, but the only time they are ever angrily challenged is when they present their ideas in front of an audience of college students.

I think about this and can only shake my head. Something should have clued off the adult audience that Bonanno and Bichlbaum were playing a game. It should have been when Bichlbaum began discussing the positive aspects of slavery. Perhaps when the two encouraged the implantation of electrodes into Third World workers in order to zap them when they weren?t working hard enough should have also been a clue.

But nothing happened. It?s a sad statement to make, but perhaps some of these men were so educated that they couldn?t exercise any simple common sense.

I seem to have gotten away from the film itself, but that tends to happen with politically-oriented films such as ?The Yes Men.? In the case of this documentary, the politics is the film, and it is even harder to separate the politics from the content here than it was in a film like ?The Hunting of the President.? With that film, we at least have the luxury of the passage of time; here we do not.

However, I can easily recommend ?The Yes Men.? It is frequently funny even though it is partisan, and it doesn?t beat you over the head with its politics. It is, as Bonanno says in the film, ?like Santa Claus, only less radical.?

And that's my two cents.

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